Christian Smith & Dave Seaman @ Singha NYE Golden Party Taipei

We got our tickets about a week ago and made our plans for tonight. The evening started pretty mellow, but I made my way to Xinyi and Taipei 101 by 11 PM. I wasn’t expecting the sea of people all over the streets and sidewalks. It made getting to the event difficult. Luckily, we saw a way through the crowds and managed to get to the venue quickly enough.

When we arrived, the venue was pretty much empty, as the crowd had left to see the Taipei 101 fireworks. They flooded back in after, but this was somewhat strange, as all of the raves and parties that I’ve attended on NYE were packed for the countdown. Since I had just experienced a densely packed Luxy the night before, I was hoping that this party wouldn’t be as packed. Thankfully it never was, but this disappointed some people, who were expecting a full throng. There were plenty of people until 4AM, when there was an exodus after Dave Seaman finished his set.

Christian Smith’s set had a bit of hard techno and lots of good, tech-house. It was nicely mixed, and I didn’t spot any problems during his 2 hour stint. He also seemed to enjoy spinning, which was cool. He didn’t use a laptop to beatmatch. It was done manually, either via CDs or WAV files. I couldn’t tell.

Dave Seaman’s set was somewhat more progressive, but with a touch of tech. It went well with Smith’s set. Seaman mixed really well, the tracks followed seamlessly. These were definitely the best DJs that I’ve seen this month in Taipei. I noticed that Christian Smith stayed to watch Dave spin. All in all, a pretty cool 4 hours. Dave also didn’t use a laptop, which meant that his tunes were mixed by hand.

The go-go girls were somewhat strange. From time to time, they came out of the back area. There were a total of six, including two in cages that rose up. It was something odd Although I didn’t mind it, many girls left the dance floor and a bunch of guys came up close to ogle the dancers and to take photos and videos. Honestly, I found them more of a distraction than anything else.

This was billed as a party, and in the beginning I expected it to be in a club, but it was the closest thing to a rave that I’ve been to recently. The only difference is that they sold alcohol, and lots of it, making for some really drunk people at the end of the night.

The party was cool, lots of interesting people and girls around, and I had fun.